


It Is Not In The Stars To Hold Our Destiny

by afteriwake



Category: Doctor Who, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2017-12-31 21:58:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Amy and Rory's marriage falls apart the Doctor whisks Amy away to travel, to forget. When she asks to go to another dimension he takes her to one where Starfleet really exists, a place he has been to before. But things are different now, and his encounter with John Harrison will have profound repercussions for the all three of them, whether he wants it to or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been asked by a few people to write Khan/Amy fic. I had planned on maybe writing something short, but this story was the one I had been thinking of for a longer story and no matter how much I tried to write the short one this is what came out. Set in an AU Doctor Who where Amy and Rory did not reconcile in "Asylum of the Daleks" and set prior to "Star Trek Into Darkness." Title comes from a quote from William Shakespeare.

Time travel was tricky business. Go to the wrong place, the wrong time, meet the wrong person and you could end up changing the course of history for the world's detriment. But take a person out of one place and move them to another, stop someone from being the bad in the world, and you could save so many. That was what he did sometimes. Maybe not take the person with them, but at least influence and start to change someone. He did it all the time, or he tried to at least. Sometimes the change went for the better. Most of the time he was that lucky. But sometimes it did not, and then there was another black mark on his soul for the people he couldn’t save.

He hadn’t been able to save Rory and Amy’s marriage. Whatever had been done had caused hurts so deep that all he could do was pick up the pieces afterwards. He’d whisked Amy away, taken her on a grand tour of the universe, but it hadn’t done much to make her happy. She enjoyed things, smile occasionally, but most of the time she was simply there, viewing but not experiencing. It worried him, so very much. This was not his Scottish ginger with the insatiable love of adventure. This was a broken friend, a friend who might be so broken that he couldn’t fix her.

She wouldn’t talk about it. He had hoped leaving the two of them alone in the Dalek asylum they would work things out, make amends, realize that they were the most important people to each other. But that had not happened. When he returned after learning the horrible truth about Oswin they were still angry, still bitter. He had solemnly taken Rory back to London and asked Amelia if she wanted to stay. That had been the end of things, the definitive end to the happiness he had seen his friends share, to the testament that love willed out. It had hurt him, it had, but not nearly as much as it had hurt her.

He had to distract her. He had to fill her days up with things to do, places to go, people to meet. He had to make her smile again, had to see the light come back into her eyes. He had to make her laugh, to feel the good things. That was his mission now, to bring his friend back. And he couldn’t afford to fail.

“So, Pond!” he asked, clapping his hands together once. “Where should we go now?”

“Wherever you want,” she said with a slight shrug. “I’m not picky, Doctor.”

“But you must have ideas, right? Something you’ve imagined yourself doing, some place you’ve always wanted to explore?” He came over to her, concern on his face. “Amy, please. It’s your choice.”

“Could we go to another dimension?” she asked.

It would be difficult. He had done it before and nearly burned up a sun. He had left Rose there, but Rose had come back. If she could come back, he could go. “We can try. Which one?”

“Somewhere different. Somewhere…better,” she said.

“I have an idea,” he said. “I’ve been there, once. It’s a brilliant place. People travel in space in great starships, and they study alien planets.”

“Sort of like Star Trek?” she asked, perking up slightly.

“Exactly like Star Trek. Where do you think Gene Roddenberry got the idea? You don’t think he dreamed it up all by himself, do you? I told him stories from that dimension.” He grinned at her, encouraged by her reaction. He began to dance around the console, getting ready to take them there. “It’s a brilliant place. I mean yes, there’s danger, but isn’t there danger everywhere?”

“I suppose so,” she said slowly.

“Exactly. I’ll take us to a safe time, a safe place. Maybe London in Stardate 2258. That should be safe enough.”

“London is still around?” Amy asked, following him around.

“Of course it is! It’s different, but it’s similar. I’ll take us there and we can have an adventure. And if you like London, then we can go to San Francisco and I’ll show you Starfleet Academy.” He flipped the last switch. “And, we’re here!” He went to the doors and threw them open, and standing there in front of him was a man. “Oh. Hello.”

“This appeared out of nowhere,” the man said, his voice a deep baritone. He murmured the words, but the look in his eyes betrayed the seemingly bored tone he used.

“Yes. Er, it’s…” the Doctor began.

“It’s a spaceship,” Amy said, coming up behind the Doctor.

“This is unlike any spaceship I have ever seen,” he said, his attention turning from the Doctor to Amy.

“It’s a TARDIS. It doesn’t exist here,” the Doctor said with a shrug. “Who are you, by the way?”

He appeared to hesitate. “John. John Harrison,” he said after a moment.

“I’m The Doctor. This is Amelia Pond.” Amy gave him a slight nod. “What do you do, John?”

“I work for Starfleet,” he said, and the Doctor noted an edge of distaste in his voice. It was barely there, but it was evident if you listened closely. The Doctor frowned slightly. “I design ships for them, among other things.”

“That actually sounds pretty interesting,” Amelia said. “Do you enjoy what you do?”

“Not really, no,” he said with a slight shrug. “But it is something to do, I suppose. What do you do?”

“I travel through time and space,” the Doctor replied. “She models.”

“You are attractive enough to be a model,” John said, looking Amy up and down. Then he turned back to the Doctor. “How do you travel through time? Theoretically, that is impossible.”

“Not for my old girl,” the Doctor said. “Would you like to go somewhere? Or somewhen, I should say.”

John looked behind him. What he was looking at the Doctor couldn’t tell, but after a moment he turned back to them and nodded slowly. “I will travel with you.”

“Excellent. You can tell us about this time and place,” the Doctor said. He moved out of the way and John entered. “You can say it.”

“It is certainly bigger inside,” he said, his eyes slightly wide.

“I love it when they say that,” the Doctor said quietly to Amy, who had a faint smile on her face. “So! When should we go?”

“Back one year,” John said quietly. “I would go back three hundred years ago, to my past, but that seems a bit much.”

“You look quite young for three hundred,” Amy remarked, raising an eyebrow.

“Cryogenic sleep,” John replied with a slight shrug.

“That must have been interesting.” She came over to him. “Why do you want to go to your past?”

“To stop myself from doing something,” he said.

The Doctor frowned. “That will change the course of history.”

“It’s already been changed once, from what I understand,” he said. “One more change won’t matter.”

“What do you want to change?” Amy asked, curious.

“I want to save my crew.” He looked at them. “Will you help me?”

“It depends on what you want me to do,” the Doctor said slowly.

“I am better, at everything. I was genetically engineered to be so. And my crew was as well. We were cast out as criminals and put into cryogenic sleep. I was awoken by an Admiral in Starfleet. He wants to exploit my intellect and is holding my crew hostage to do it. I want to make sure this course of action never occurs.”

“So what exactly do you want to do?” Amy asked.

“I want to make sure we are not found by Starfleet.”

The Doctor looked at John, then at Amy. “It couldn’t hurt,” he replied as he turned back to John. “Do you know where you were found?”

John nodded. “I know the exact date, time and coordinates.”

“Then let’s stop them from finding you,” he said. 

“Thank you,” John said with a nod. “You have no idea what this will do.”

The Doctor went to the console. Something was off. Possibly. Maybe. He would go and take the man to his ship, but he would be on his guard. Something was not quite right, and he wanted to find out what exactly that was. After all, he got the feeling this was one of those times that changing one man’s life could change the course of history. He just hoped he was changing the right person’s history.


	2. Chapter 2

Even though the TARDIS could travel quickly it still took a little bit of time. John stayed quiet for the most part, inspecting the console and asking the occasional question. Amy sat in the chair by the console and observed him. The Doctor saw something in her eyes that he hadn't seen in a while: interest. This man interested her. He wondered why, but he didn't press her on it, mostly because John seemed oblivious to it and he got the feeling Amy was studying him covertly.

“We're here,” he said after a moment, pulling the brake up. “Is it going to be safe to open my doors?”

“The life support systems were on when I was found,” John said. He moved over towards the doors. “May I?”

The Doctor nodded. “Of course.”

“What are you going to do?” Amy asked, standing up and bounding over to the doors.

“Pilot the ship away from where we were found,” he said, giving her a quick glance. “If we are not in that location they can't find us.”

“Makes sense,” Amy said with a nod. “Humor me for a second, though.”

“Yes?” he asked.

“If you pilot the ship away, your future changes. You don't get found, you're still in cryogenic sleep, right?”

“Theoretically, yes,” John said slowly.

“So why change things? You move this ship and then this awake you disappears and you can't control what happens to you unless someone else wakes you up. What good are you to your crew then?”

He looked at her, giving her an assessing glance. “What do you propose I do?” he asked after a moment.

She turned back to the Doctor. “Any chance we can go a little farther back in time and get his friends off the ship but leave him? Get his friends somewhere safe?”

“So I will be the only occupant on board the ship,” John said slowly. “Then my crew could not be used as hostages.”

“Do you want them to be put somewhere that you can get to, where they will be safe and no one else will get to them?” the Doctor asked.

“That would be preferred,” John said with a nod.

“Then let's go back a week and get started,” the Doctor said, flipping some levers and pushing buttons on the controls. “Is it going to be hard to get them on board?”

“I do not think so,” John said. “I would assume not, at any rate.”

“Then let's get started.” The Doctor joined the two of them at the doors and opened them up. John stepped out first, then Amy, then the Doctor. He kept his sonic screwdriver close. “Where are all of you?”

“All around the ship,” John said. “There are seventy-two of us here.”

“So we get to haul seventy-one cryogenic sleep thingies on board the TARDIS?” Amy asked, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe you should have gone back two weeks.”

“I think the Doctor and I should be able to move them,” John said. “Despite the fact that each one holds a full-sized human they are rather easy to maneuver. I designed them that way.” He stepped out onto his ship. “We will start with the ones in the corridor. Once I show you how to lower them and turn on the hover capabilities it should be easy to get them into your ship. Follow me.”

The two of them went out onto the ship and encountered their first cryogenic sleep pod after five minutes. John keyed in a code and then the pod came away from the wall and then tipped over so that it was horizontal. John keyed in another code and the support arm fell away but the pod stayed at that height. “Now we just need to guide it.”

Amy stood near John and then pushed it. “That's really light,” she said, surprised.

“Anti-gravity is at play,” he said. “Where are you going to store them?”

“Well, if you have seventy-one on board they might all fit in one of the rooms. I can always ask the TARDIS to grow one large enough.”

“Grow?” John and Amy said at the same time. They looked at each other and Amy gave him a small grin, which he didn't return.

“It's how it makes the new rooms,” he said. “It's complicated. But if I ask for a room to store them one will open up. The TARDIS will shift things or delete unused rooms to make space.”

“You have a fascinating ship,” John murmured.

“I'll take this one in and set it up,” the Doctor said, taking hold of the edge of the cryogenic pod. He pulled it back towards the TARDIS, leaving John and Amy alone.

“You made an excellent observation earlier,” John said quietly. “This way my crew is protected from Admiral Marcus, and I am alive to make sure they are safe.”

“History will change, though,” she said.

“History already changed once. A ship arrived that was not supposed to be here. It changed aspects of this place, from what I understand. Admiral Marcus talks about it vaguely around me, thinking I would not understand, but I do. History is fluid here.”

“There aren't as many fixed points in time as you'd think,” Amy replied, moving towards the other pod to the right of the one they sent into the TARDIS. “And when you try and change one of those bad things happen.”

“Such as?” John asked, coming over to her.

“All of time happening at once,” she said. “That was an interesting experience that I don't want to relive.”

“You lived through it?” he asked, looking at her.

She nodded. “I have three different timelines in my head, three different ways my universe was different.” She frowned. “Or maybe it's four. The one where my aunt raised me, the one where the Doctor's enemies wiped out all the stars and planets in every galaxy, the one where all of time happened at once and this one, the one I'm living now. Yeah, four.”

“That's remarkable,” he murmured. “How do you keep them all straight?”

“I try and forget most of them,” she said. “You'll probably remember this one, where they woke you up and held your crew hostage. And then you'll remember the new one we're creating, where they find the ship and you're the only one on it. If this version of you doesn't disappear, I mean. That could happen.”

“I hope it doesn't. I will do my crew no good if I don't remember where they are.”

“If this version of you does disappear, we can find you again. We can rescue you from this Admiral Marcus and we can tell you where they are and how to get to them.”

'Why would you do this for me?” he asked, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at her. “You don't know me.”

“But you need our help. It's what we do. We help,” she said with a shrug. “Well, usually it's what we do. Right now the Doctor is trying to help me forget something.”

“What do you need to forget?” John asked, looking over the other pod.

“My husband. Soon to be ex-husband, if he has any say in the matter. I think it's for the best that we're getting a divorce. The less I have to hurt him the better.”

“You do not seem to be the type to want to hurt anyone,” he said.

“Well, I hurt him. I pushed him away. He wants children and I can't have any more.”

“You have a child?”

“Sort of. It's a long and complicated story,” Amy said with a shrug.

“I have time,” he said slowly. “We don't know how long it will take your friend to find a room that will hold all these pods.”

Amy looked him up and down. “Okay,” she said after a moment. “When we got married, we had our honeymoon on the TARDIS. And one day while it was in flight I got pregnant, and my child was special.” She launched into the rest of the tale, telling him about her kidnapping and the flesh duplicate and the whole thing at Demon's Run, and then how her childhood friend Mels had been her daughter Melody but they didn't know until she regenerated in front of them, and then how Mels became River Song, only she didn't know it at the time. He listened patiently, for which she was grateful. She wound down by telling him about the Dalek asylum. “So after all that, we just fell out of love,” she said, giving him a half smile as she finished. “Welcome to the complicated saga that is my life.”

He nodded slowly. “You have indeed lived a remarkable life,” he said. “And yet you are still here and still trying.”

“Well, if I didn't, what would be the point? I'll admit for that last little while I was just existing, but...maybe I've got my spark back.”

“Perhaps.” He turned and looked at her. “If I disappear, if I wake up and Admiral Marcus finds me and tries to exploit me again, will you find me? Will you take me away?”

“That isn't my decision,” she said. “But I can try and persuade the Doctor. I mean, no one should force you to do anything. What is he forcing you to do, anyway?”

“Design battleships and advanced weaponry,” he said. “He wants a glorious war with the Klingons. He wants to wipe the race out. I don't care myself, but he thinks this will make him the greatest Admiral Starfleet has ever seen. I think he's delusional.”

Amy snorted slightly. “He sounds like it. But why grab you?”

“I was the leader of this crew. I was located in the front of the ship, away from the rest of my crew. I had been the last to go to sleep. They probably realized I held some rank when they found me, and when I was brought out and they interrogated me my intellect and prowess shone through. And probably my pride and arrogance as well.”

“Both are things you can work on if you get this second chance,” she said as she heard footsteps. “I think he's coming back.”

“Amy?” John asked.

“Yeah?” she replied.

“Thank you. For saying you will try and persuade him to take me with you.”

“Well, I mean, it's the right thing to do,” she said with a slight shrug. Then the Doctor came over to them. “So! Do we have a room yet?”

“We do,” the Doctor said with a nod. “If you two will get this occupant down and follow me I'll show you.”

John nodded and keyed in the first code, and when it was lowered he keyed in the second. This time John pushed the pod along the hallway, Amy at his side, and they followed the Doctor back onto the TARDIS. The Doctor directed them on how to get to the room he had set aside for them, and upon entering it Amy's eyes got wide while John nodded appreciatively. “This will do well,” he said.

“It's so big,” Amy said. “I didn't think there was a room in this ship that was this big.”

“One day I'll take you to the library,” the Doctor said with a grin. “Let's try and get as many in as we can before we need to take a break. I'd like to get this done as quickly as possible just in case my calculations are off.”

“Very well,” John said depositing the pod on the rack jutting out of the wall. The Doctor left again, and John nodded to Amy. “After you.”

“All right,” she said with a nod, exiting the room. John followed, and soon enough they were hard at work. It took them nearly all day and part of the night, but finally all the pods were on the TARDIS. “So now what?” Amy asked, yawning.

“Now we wait to see what happens to John,” he said. “What memories do you find changing?”

John was quiet for a moment as he shut his eyes. “The people who found me were upset that I was the only one on board. They expected more. They took me to Admiral Marcus, and he threatened me with other things. I was under close guard until I proved myself that I wouldn't bolt. But the day I met you, that stayed the same. I remember all this. I remember the old line of events as well.” He opened his eyes. “How is that possible?”

“Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff,” the Doctor said evasively. “Since you didn't disappear I'd say we're successful. Do you want to go back now that you know they're safe?”

“Actually, Doctor,” Amy said. “Maybe he could travel with us for a bit?”

“Do you want to?” the Doctor asked John.

“I will admit I am fascinated by the stories Amy shared,” he said slowly. “I would like to travel with you, if you will let me. If for no other reason than it keeps me away from Admiral Marcus.”

“Then let us find a safe place for your crew,” the Doctor said. “Or would you rather have them stay here for now?”

“Let us find a safe place. Not that I don't believe you can keep them safe, but it would be best to find someplace where they will continue to sleep undisturbed.”

“I think I know just the place,” he said. “I'll take you there.”

The Doctor motioned for John to come over to him, and the two of them talked in hushed tones. Finally the Doctor left, leaving Amy and John in the room with the pods. “So, where are they going?” Amy asked.

“To a sparsely inhabited planet in your universe, where I will go and be put back into cryogenic sleep after I am done traveling with you.”

“That's not a life worth looking forward to,” Amy said with a frown.

“But it is what should have happened before,” he said with a slight shrug. “Still, I will get to experience what you've experienced. Maybe it will make me a better man when we are awoken.”

“Do you need to be a better man?” Amy asked quietly.

“I have done bad things,” John said slowly. “I had reasons I thought were good. But I did bad things to many people. There is a reason we were cast out as criminals.”

“Then take advantage of this second chance and don't screw it up,” she said, crossing her arms slightly. “I'll help keep you on the straight and narrow.”

“And why would you help me?” he asked, coming over to her.

“You fascinate me,” she said quietly.

“That's interesting, because you fascinate me as well,” he murmured.

“Well, I'm over my bad boy phase. Keep that in mind.” She gave him a slight smile. “I'm going to go help the Doctor now.” She made her way to the door, then stopped and turned around. “Coming?”

“Of course,” he said with a nod, and he followed her out of the room. This was a twist he had not expected, but he was interested in seeing where it led.


	3. Chapter 3

“I do not understand the point of watching a man paint the ceiling of a chapel,” John said when he and Amy left the TARDIS a week after he had joined them. Traveling through the stars did not interest him, but traveling through time did. So far they had paid a visit to Liz X so Amy could renew her acquaintance and actually take a tour of Space Britain, and they had gone to the 1920s in Australia and solved a murder there. John had declined to pick any destination they had gone to, content to let Amy decide, but he seemed to regret this choice.

“It's Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel. Surely that existed in your universe?” she asked as the two of them followed the Doctor through the crowded streets towards the chapel.

“In ancient history. It was destroyed in one of the three battles that overtook the Earth,” he said.

“Well, then you get to see history being made, which is better than just reading about it in a dusty old book.”

“Books are quite rare in my time,” he said. 

“I love books. I want to write them some day,” she said with a smile. “I want to tell stories of all the adventures I have with the Doctor. I think I could do a very good job.”

“As I have yet to see a sample of your writing I couldn't say one way or the other,” he replied. “But you could conceivably do a passable job.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” she said, swatting at his shoulder. Then she looked around. “Do you see the Doctor?”

“I do not,” he said after a moment of looking. “Do you know how to get to the chapel we're headed for?”

She shook her head. “I've only been to Italy once and I was in Venice. Not an experience I'd like to repeat, actually.”

“Oh?” he asked, turning to look at her.

“Aliens that acted like vampires,” she replied. “Nearly became one of them.”

“How does a human become an alien?” he asked curiously.

“With super advanced technology you can become a hybrid. Or at least they could make you a hybrid. Didn't work in the end. The Doctor destroyed the technology and all the aliens and hybrid aliens died.” She looked around. “We should try and find him.”

“He won't get into trouble,” John said. “If you're hellbent on seeing this chapel we should go see it.”

“Oh, you don't know the Doctor nearly as well as I do. If there is trouble around he'll find it, I guarantee it. We just need to find the trouble and then we'll find him, and hopefully he won't be waist deep in it.” She reached over for John's hand and grabbed it, pulling him along. “Come on.”

John allowed himself to be pulled along for a few minutes before he stopped. Amy took a few more steps and then stopped when she couldn't pull him again. She turned and was about to say something when he put a finger to his lips and then pulled her close against him. He was quiet for a moment, and then he pulled her into an alleyway. “Do you hear that?” he asked, his voice low.

She concentrated. “It sounds like a low level buzzing,” she said. “Like bees under glass.”

“It's machinery that shouldn't exist in this time and place,” he said. “If I had to wager where the Doctor was it would be in this building.”

“So we should go in and get him, yeah?” she asked. “Bring him out before he gets himself into trouble.”

“That's not sound tactical planning. If we go in without reconnaissance first we could get trapped.” He looked up at the window on the wall behind Amy. Then he looked across from it. “Will the natives understand me?” he asked.

“Never had a problem with it before. The TARDIS translates a large area. They'll think we're speaking Italian, we'll think they're speaking English with a British accent.”

“That must be boring,” she said.

“The only way I hear other accents is if they're already speaking English,” she said with a grin. “No translation needed.”

“I suppose there are worse things,” he said. “Even though the locals do not seem to be paying any particular attention to our clothing I would like to be in something more appropriate.”

“Yeah, but if we have to get him out of there I'd much rather be in trousers and a T-shirt than a dress. You might need my help and what good would I be to you in a Renaissance dress?”

He thought about it for a minute. “Fair point. Very well. You get into the room up there and then observe. I'm going to search as much of this building as I can.”

Amy's eyes narrowed. “You just want me out of the way,” she said.

“I believe the machine is in the room across from that window. If you can observe it then you can tell me if anything strange is going on.”

“How am I going to alert you?” she asked.

“Whistle,” he said as he moved away from her.

“Just whistle,” she said quietly, shaking her head as she watched him leave. She made her way to the other building and then charmed the shopkeeper to let her upstairs. She got to the window and looked through to the other side. There was definitely a machine in there, and she could see the Doctor tied up in a chair. The shopkeeper was talking to her and she watched as a pink skinned alien struck the Doctor in the back of the head. Suddenly she couldn't understand what the shopkeeper was saying. She turned and smiled, pointing to the window, but he seemed intent on flirting. When he came over to her and pressed himself on top of her she kneed him in the groin and then took a heavy book by the window and hit him in the head. He collapsed, and then she opened up the window and stuck her head out, whistling. John came back around the corner moments later. “He's upstairs, tied to a chair an unconscious. And I can't understand anything anymore.”

“The translation field must only work when the Doctor is conscious,” John mused. “I'll get him and bring him back down.”

“Don't leave me up here! The man who owns the shop made a pass at me and he's in a heap on the floor. If he comes to I don't think I can overpower him again.”

“Very well,” he said with a sigh. “But don't get in my way.”

“I can hold my own in a fight, thank you very much,” she said, pulling her head back in. She made her way back down to the ground level and into the alley. John was waiting for her. “How are we going to get in?”

“Easy. We use the window.”

She stared at him. “There's no rope and no ladder. How are we going to get up?”

“There's no ladder on _this_ side. The Doctor put one on the other.” He nodded towards the mouth of the alley. “After you.”

Amy moved out of the alley with John right behind her. They quickly walked around to the other side of the building and there she saw the ladder. John moved to it first and climbed up, and Amy followed right behind him. He had just made it into the building when she heard signs of a scuffle. She peeked into the room and saw John brutally take down another pink skinned alien. “Don't kill him!” she said.

“He was trying to kill me,” John pointed out.

“No killing. It's one of the Doctor's rules,” she said as she climbed in.

He sighed. “Very well,” he said, releasing his choke hold on the alien. The alien slumped down to the ground and John began searching him. He pulled off something that looking like a gun and a small round object. “I can make use of these.”

“Just don't kill anyone with the gun,” she said.

“You can always aim to injure as oppose to kill, though it is usually more effective to kill your enemies. That means less chance of retaliation later.”

“We don't even know if these aliens are our enemies,” she pointed out.

“They have guns and they hurt the Doctor. I don't see how that makes them our friends,” he said. He handed her the gun when she got close. “I don't need that, but you might.”

“Trusting me with a gun?” she asked.

“I trust you like me well enough not to shoot at me,” he said with a slight grin.

“Oh, I like you quite a bit,” she said with a grin of her own. “I would feel _really_ bad if I shot you.”

“Well, we don't want you to feel bad, now do we?” he asked. He began to make his way towards the door and then opened it. Amy followed once he signaled that the coast was clear. The buzzing sound was much louder now, and they moved towards the room that was roughly in the area where Amy had seen he machine. John got to the door and opened it quickly, stalking into the room. Amy saw there were three aliens there, not just one. She trained the gun on the aliens but John was already handling it well enough on his own.

After a moment she went over to the Doctor. One thing she'd started to do was carry around a small pocket knife, and she cut through his bonds as quickly as she could, ignoring the sounds of fighting. Once she got his legs and arms undone she went to work waking him up. “Doctor?” she asked, shaking him. “Doctor!” Still, he didn't respond. Finally she reached over and slapped him across the face, and his eyes snapped open. “Doctor. Good to see you woke up.”

“We have to destroy the machine!” the Doctor said, his eyes wide. “It will call a whole armada of the Jegrhans to Earth to make it the new base in their plan to take over the universe.”

“Well, what do we need to do?”

“Show them that Earthlings can fight back,” he said.

“I think John's doing a good enough job of that,” Amy said as John threw one of the aliens into the machine. It dented and smoke began to pour out of it. “And he broke the machine to boot.”

“He was certainly serious when he said he was superior to most other humans,” the Doctor said.

“He's impressive,” Amy replied.

“He's dangerous, too,” the Doctor replied quietly. Finally the last alien went after John and he punched him across the face. The alien sank down to the floor and John looked at the two of them. “Right. It seems the machine won't do what it's intended to do, and we can get these aliens back to their ship and off this planet. Let's get them to the TARDIS.”

“No need,” John said, holding up the little ball. “If I'm not mistaken, this is similar to a device that can open up a wormhole. We open one up and send them through to the other side.”

“What's going to be on the other side?” Amy asked.

“Hopefully their commanding officer,” the Doctor said. “Very well. We'll send the three of them and their machine along.”

“Four,” Amy said. “There's another one in the other room.”

“I'll go get him,” John said before leaving the room.

“I'll help,” the Doctor said. The two men left the room and were gone about ten minutes, which was long enough for Amy to start to get worried. Finally they came back in, John carrying the unconscious alien and the Doctor right behind him. “It's all settled now. We'll send them back and then go visit Michelangelo.” 

“All right,” Amy said slowly. John deposited the alien near the machine and then dragged the others over before moving to Amy. “Is everything all right?” she asked him quietly.

“The Doctor and I just had a chat,” he said. “It's nothing.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Quite sure.”

They watched the Doctor set the coordinates and open the wormhole. He moved it so the aliens and their machine were sucked into it, and then moments later it turned itself off. The Doctor turned back towards them before putting the ball in his pocket. “Now then! Sistine Chapel, yes?”

“No,” Amy said, crossing her arms. “Not until you tell me what you and John chatted about.”

“It was nothing,” the Doctor said. “I was just going over guidelines: no killing, no maiming, no putting innocent people in harm's way.”

“That shouldn't have taken ten minutes,” she said.

“The alien woke up,” John said. “I had to knock it out again. That took time.”

She looked from John to the Doctor and then back to John. “Don't either of you lie to me. Ever. Lie to me and I leave, understand?”

“Understood,” John said with a nod.

“Yes, understood,” the Doctor said.

“All right. I suppose we can go see the chapel now,” she said. “After you two, just in case we missed one of them.” The Doctor nodded and headed out of the room, but John lingered. “Yes?” she asked.

“He really did just remind me of his rules for being a companion,” he said. “I may be deceitful from time to time with people but I promise I will not lie to you, out of respect.”

“I'll hold you to that,” she said with a small smile. “And I promise I'll do the same.”

“Thank you,” John said with a nod.

“You both should be coming out now!” the Doctor called from outside the door.

“Coming, Doctor!” Amy called back, her grin widening slightly as she stepped past John. Dangerous as John might be he was definitely someone who she felt comfortable around, she realized, and that had to count for something.


End file.
